


Like I Could Stay Away

by the_most_beautiful_broom



Series: Tumblr Prompts [7]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, First Kiss, Self-Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-08 20:30:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14701662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_beautiful_broom/pseuds/the_most_beautiful_broom
Summary: For the prompt "Write a kiss...as a promise"





	Like I Could Stay Away

“Let me pass, Murphy.”

Raven’s voice was shaking, and Murphy’s jaw clenched, but his hands didn’t move from her shoulders.

“I can’t do that, Ray.”

“Don’t give me that,” Raven said, hearing the panic lacing her voice but not caring, “You have to let me in there.”

“Clarke says—”

“I don’t care,” Raven interrupted, seething, “Zeke stepped between me and that maniac; I’m the reason he’s in there.”

Her words echoed around the clearing and Murphy looked down. She heard Harper step towards her and she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t be around her friends all looking concerned and nervous, and terrified. Drawing in a shaking breath, Raven ducked her head to make Murphy meet her eyes.

“John,” she pleaded, hating the fact that she was literally begging, but having no other choice, “I need to be in there. There’s a bullet in his stomach and it’s because of me. If it weren’t a big deal, Clarke would let me in, but she isn’t and if anything happens…Please. Please.”

And he wanted to let her; she could see in his eyes how sorry he was. But he shook his head slowly and she had to remember that, as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t tell him to float himself when all he’d done was exactly what Clarke had asked.

So she made herself breathe, smile like she understood, and step back from him. Paced the worn boards in front of the church, disassembled three different radios, reworked her brace, and told Emori and Monty she was fine when they tried to be supportive and encouraging. And they were trying, and it was sweet. But she should be inside.

It was three hours before the door of the church creaked open, and Clarke stepped out. Raven was on her feet in an instant, reading the exhaustion on her friend’s face, but too nervous to think of anything else.

Clarke’s chin dipped almost imperceptibly, and Raven’s hand covered her mouth as she felt all the air leave her body. She bounded up the stairs, ignoring her knee, rushing into the building and pausing inside the door.

It was dark inside.

Zeke was propped up in a pew near the front, his stomach wrapped in what looked like miles of bandages and Raven realized she was shaking. His eyes were closed and his forehead was wrinkled, face set in an effort to grit through the pain he was in. He blinked at her footfall, and when he saw it was her, he straightened, even as the motion made him wince.

“Don’t you dare,” Raven said, her voice sounding fragile to her own ears as she quickly crossed the room to push him back to rest against the wooden arm. Her hand lingered on his shoulder and she couldn’t help herself, but she had to feel him. In front of her, worse for the wear but okay. His skin was warm under her touch, and her fingers chased across his bare chest, skimming down to the place where his skin was wrapped in the gauze.

Clarke did a good job, of course she did, and he’s okay, but Raven pulled back her fingers, her throat suddenly dry. She looked back up at his face, startled to find his eyes on her already. And he was staring at her with an expression like gratitude and awe and contentment, like if he could rewrite the afternoon, he’d do it all over again. Like her being here, now, made it okay for him to have a hole in his stomach. And she wasn’t crying, but it was too much; she sank down onto the edge of the pew where he wasn’t, pressing her hands over her face, her mind racing and heart pounding and lungs trying to remember that breathing was necessary.

She barely knew him.

A week ago she hadn’t known he existed, and then she’d met him when he tried to hack a ship out from underneath her. Then they actually met on the ground and he’d stopped them from killing Murphy, then sided with them after the Eligius fallout and she had barely had time to process that he was wickedly smart and kind to a fault and then he’d literally taken a bullet for her, and it was too too much.

She felt his fingers on her wrists as she let out a shaking breath as he gently pulled her hands away from her face. As she lowered them, she looked up at him again, eyes searching his, trying to understand. This day, these feelings, him. All of it, new to her.

Zeke laced his fingers into hers, and held her hands, but didn’t say anything. His thumbs moved over the back of her hands, and Raven realized she was still shaking. Her head dipped, and she let herself fall forward, resting the crown of her head on his shoulder.    

His fingers continued their movement over her hands and her eyes closed, breathing easy for the first time in hours. Raven wondered if it was the closeness or the smell of him, but she was comforted by it. She pulled back slightly, blinking at how near she was to him, but needing to be this close.

“You can’t scare me like that again,” she whispered, her eyes darting between his. “You hear me?”

He smiled, a slight smile and a soft one, a reassuring one, and Raven let out another long breath. Her heart shouldn’t be clenching like it was, and she shouldn’t be clinging to his hands like she was, but she couldn’t help it.

But he shook his head, a slight motion where his chin went to the left, his smile still in place and his eyes impossibly soft. “What else could I do, Raven?” he asked, his voice low and eyes earnest.

And if her heart leapt before, it was somersaulting now, when he said her name like a prayer and like breathing. So she shook her head right back at him, her hair swishing over her shoulders, not understanding.

“I can’t do this again,” she said, her voice shaking, “Zeke, they wouldn’t let me in and I was so worried—”

She broke off, biting back the words. Knowing it dumb, because he was the one that was actually wounded but she felt it. Every minute of the last few hours, every second she’d been locked out of the church, she’d felt it.

“Hey,” he said gently, bringing her gaze back to his. “I’m here; it’s okay. I’m okay.”

“Barely,” she couldn’t help amending.

His fingers squeezed hers as his smile grew slightly. “Maybe, yeah, but I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

She didn’t know what to say, so she just lifted the hands in hers, brought them up to her lips and kissed his knuckles. His second hand lingered, turning in hers so his thumb could brush her chin. She didn’t even mean to, but she leaned into his touch, turning her face into his hand.

When she looked back at him, his eyes were no less soft, but there was something burning behind them, and Raven finally felt like she could offer him a semblance of a smile.

His finger on her chin drifted to under her jaw, and then he pulled, ever so slightly.

“Come here,” he whispered, and then he was kissing her.

His lips were firm and strong and Raven wanted to melt into him, wrap herself around him to keep him close, keep him safe, but she settled for releasing his hands. Her fingers settled on the warm skin of his upper arms and she thought he might be smiling against her mouth but then his hand was in her hair, angling her head to kiss her deeper, and she sighed into him.

After an eternity or a moment, he pulled broke away, breathless. Neither of them moved back though, needing this closeness. Raven opened her eyes slowly, happy to find him, yet again, watching her.

“Not going anywhere,” she mumbled, repeating his words, “I’m holding you to that.”

And he made a sound like a laugh, his lips curving up and his chin dipping in a nod. “Like I could stay away from you, Reyes.”

She tucked her head into his neck again, breathing in, breathing him. “Promise?”

His hand stayed in her hair, rubbing gently at the base of her neck. “Promise.”


End file.
